As Pope Francis embarks on his historic visit to the United States, His Holiness will spread his message of hope, faith and unity in the form of a prog-rock-infused album titled Wake Up! this November. The Vatican-approved LP, a collaboration with Believe Digital, features the Pontiff delivering sacred hymns and excerpts of his most moving speeches in multiple languages paired with uplifting musical accompaniment ranging from pop-rock to Gregorian chant. Wake Up! arrives November 27th, with the iTunes pre-order now available with an instant download of “Wake Up! Go! Go! Forward!,” which Rolling Stone is proud to premiere.

You can go there to try to listen to it. It only played for me for less than a minute before crashing my browser.

Wake Up! Go! Go! Forward!” finds Pope Francis addressing a South Korean audience in English last year amid atmospheric synths, trumpeting horns and skyscraping electric guitars reminiscent of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. “Wake up / Wake up,” Pope Francis says on the track. “The Lord speaks of a responsibility that the Lord gives you / It is a duty to be vigilant / Not to allow the pressures, the temptations and the sins to dull our sensibility of the beauty of holiness.” Later on the moving track, the Pope tells his audience, “No one who sleeps can sing, dance and rejoice,” as he urges them to wake up and go.

All of the tracks are supposed to be heavy on the synth-pop. Great. I wonder if there’s one of those horrible voice synthesizers in the mix, too

A little more seriously, US News notes that Pope Francis used language surprisingly similar to Obama’s in decrying so-called religious extremism.

Obama:

Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.

Pope Francis:

Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind.

Even with the announcement of John Boehner’s resignation from the House today (Ohio officials have issued a flood warning for the Ohio River once Boehner returns, his tears likely to lead to a serious overflow), the grave problems with the GOPe roper leadership remain. A record of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s pro-abort votes in favor of Planned Murderhood have been revealed, and they point to a typical pro-abort liberal elitist who has somehow been allowed to masquerade as a conservativish Repubnik for decades. Don’t think the positive scores given by National Right to Life and other groups played little or no part in that masquerade. They were central to it:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wants you to think he opposes the effort to defund Planned Parenthood in the continuing resolution (CR) because it could cause a government shutdown.

He also wants you to think it’s because he doesn’t have 60 votes in the Senate when in fact it only takes 41 votes to filibuster funding for the organization. [But my goodness, think of the 2016 election! It’s an election year! But it’s always an election year! If off-years like 2015 constitute “election years,” they must never end, eh? And what is losing a few seats in the House or Senate (which seats haven’t been worth very much to Christians, anyway), compared to the slaughter and sale of hundreds of thousands of perfectly innocent children? Who thinks like that?]

But the real reason he won’t fight is that he doesn’t really care about stopping funding for Planned Parenthood, and he never has.

Here are the facts that he doesn’t want you to know:

(1) In 1992, McConnell voted to allow taxpayer-funded research using body parts from aborted babies.

McConnell’s vote in this case was to override President Bush’s veto, but the House sustained it. Then, in 1993, President Clinton overturned the “Reagan Rule” by Executive Order on the first day of his administration.

(3) In 1997, McConnell again voted against a targeted ban on federal funding for research on body parts from abortions.

This time, McConnell was one of 14 liberal Republicans who voted to allow taxpayer-funded research on body parts from abortions.

In the these three examples, McConnell crossed the then-current Republican president and many of his Republican colleagues in the Senate to open the door for taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood and for research on body parts from aborted babies.

(4) McConnell has voted for at least 15 bills that provided funding for Planned Parenthood dating back to 1998.

This is important because it shows how long Senator McConnell has tolerated this funding and refused to do anything meaningful to stop it.

Senator McConnell says defunding Planned Parenthood has to wait until Republicans control the White House, but at least five of his past votes to fund it were when Republicans controlled the House, Senate, and White House. [This is the key. It’s always next year, next year, a few more seats, a few more billion dollars, meanwhile, the pile of murdered babies reaches Everest-like proportions. The point is, next year will never, ever come. Even if the R’s in the Senate had 65 seats and Zombie Reagan in the White House, they still would find a way to fail and keep abortion just as accessible and cheap and easy as it is today: that’s because they want it to be!!! How else do they take care of their “little accidents” with female staffers and DC call girls?]

Here’s the bottom line:

Senator McConnell isn’t 100% pro-life. He has repeatedly voted to force American taxpayers to fund Planned Parenthood, its pro-abortion counseling, and research on the babies it aborts.

As if you needed more reasons to deplore this man. I assume readers were aware his pro-life credentials were, ahem, slightly suspect, but I’d say now they are pretty well blown to smithereens.

The Revolution has been afflicting Christendom for 500 years. We are in what probably constitutes its terminal state, but even 150 years ago its nature was very apparent. Also apparent was the vital characteristics of the Church’s response to the existential threat posed by the Revolution. The exhortation Dom Gueranger gave then is all the more applicable today, as we see the Church deeply infiltrated with revolutionary notions and what many feel is the end game in progress to forever bend the Church to revolutionary ends.

The infidel may say in his heart; ‘There is no Go!’ (Ps xiii:1). If he hears not the divine testimony, it is because corruption, or pride, has more power over him than the light of reason, just as it had over the enemies of Jesus during His life upon earth. He is like to the asp of the Psalm (Ps lvii:5-6), which maketh itself death; it stoppeth its ears, that it may never hear the voice of the Divine Enchanter, Who speaketh that He may save. His life is one piece of madness and folly; he has done his best to draw down vengeance upon himself.

Let us not be like him, but, with the apostle, let us thank God for the rich profusion of Grace which He has so mercifully poured out upon us. Never were His gratuitous gifts more necessary than in these our miserable times. True, the Gospel does not now need to be promulgated; but the efforts of hell against it have become so violent that, in order to withstand them, there is need of a power from on high equal in some sense to that we read of as granted in the beginning of the Church. Let us beseech our Lord to bless us with men powerful in word and work. Let us, by the fervor of our fastings and prayers, obtain from His Divine Majesty that the imposition of hands may produce, now more than ever, in them that are called to the priesthood [and especially the episcopate], its full fruit; that it may make them rich in all things, and especially in all utterance and in all knowledge. May these days, in which all principles are growing shadowy, find that the supernatural light is kept up,in full splendor and purity, by the zeal of the guides of Christ’s flock. May the compromises and flinchings of a generation, in which all truth is being etiolated [I had to look it up, too: having lost vigor or substance] and diminished, never lead our newly ordained priests, either themselves to shorten, or to permit anyone else to curtail, the measure of the perfect man (Eph vi:13), which was bestowed on them, in order that they might apply it to every Christian who is desirous of observing the Gospel!

In spite of all threat, in spite of the noisy passions which are boisterous against any priest who dares to preach the truth, let their voice be what it should be – that is, an echo of the Word; let it vibrate with the holy firmness of the Saints!

———–End Quote———–

There is much to take into prayerful account in the above. Yes we desperately need good, holy priests and bishops; the crisis in the Church is a crisis of priests and especially bishops. But we, too, must do our absolute utmost in terms of prayer and fasting to bring down more Grace for our priests, that the Church may be blessed with true spiritual fathers and shepherds of souls to bring to all the Light of Jesus Christ. Even if this crisis be willed by God, there is always a need for pious clergy to edify the souls who remain faithful. At present, there is probably a great shortfall of good clergy compared to souls who desire to be good.

Our Lady of Ransom, pray for us! Implore God to have mercy on His Church and to raise up great Saints to guide her in this hour of desperate trial. Implore the Lord to inspire our Holy Father with the true spirit of Christ and our Holy Mother Church. May God have mercy on all pious souls and bless every one of them with a good, holy, orthodox priest to guide them to salvation. And may God have mercy on this wicked culture that has always sought to break the Church and turn our glorious Mother into an easy slattern that rises up to play with the world but does little good for souls.

The MH-53E Sea Dragon is a specialty version of the Marine Corps CH-53E Super Sea Stallion used by the Navy primarily for mine countermeasures (MCM). The primary anti-mine capability employed by the Sea Dragon is a very large sled pulled behind the aircraft across the water. This is designed to detect mines and possibly trigger their detonation in a relatively harmless way. Since the sled is large and the drag from passing through the water tremendous, a helo of great power is needed. That is why a version of the H-53 was chosen, it is the largest, most powerful helicopter in US service. Unfortunately, the Navy was phasing out the MH-53E in favor of the must lower-powered MH-60S for the MCM role, but I believe I’ve read that phase-out has at least been delayed due to problems with the MH-60S in that role. It just really doesn’t have enough power, especially in hot/humid environments and rough seas.

The MH-53E is a highly modified version of the standard CH-53E. The most obvious distinguishing characteristic are the very large fuel sponsons on each side of the fuselage. The interior can be outfitted with large reels and other mechanisms to deploy and retract the MK-104 acoustic mine sweeping sensor (sort of like a sonar for finding mines) and other sleds which I believe can be used to detonate mines (maybe Blaine can comment, not sure if those are still used, they were in the Vietnam timeframe).

Real short video of a sled being pulled:

The video below shows the interior of an MH-53E while performing the MCM mission, including recovery of the sensor:

This one shows an MH-53E from HC-4 going from Sigonella Sicily to Iraq during its last deployment before disestablishment in 2007. Lots of combat footage, you can see the many other roles an MH-53E can perform with its long range and great power. Music is terrible, sorry. Lots of NVG combat:

Saving the best for last, bringing a 20 ton helo from maybe 80-100 kts to zero in a few seconds and a few hundred feet. Not a bad capability to have in combat. I understand this makes for a very exciting ride:

I’ve been next to CH-53Es during takeoff. “Colossal threshing power” is a great phrase for the power from the main rotor. Even more than a Chinook. Really great bird.

The Marines have an even larger and more powerful version in development called the CH-53K King Stallion. It will have, get this, 24,000 horsepower from thee engines and an all up weight of 44 tons. This will be nearly as heavy as the ridiculously gargantuan helicopters built by the Mil design bureau for the Soviet Union, the Mi-6 and Mi-26. The former was horribly underpowered and suitable only for low-level, near sea level work. The Mi-26 was much more capable.

One final note, don’t confuse the MH-53E with the MH-53J/M Pave Low III/IV, recently retired by the Air Force as their primary special operations capable helicopter for deep penetration and night missions. MH-53Js served as pathfinders for Army AH-64A Apaches during the opening hours of Desert Storm, flying hundreds of miles at very low level at night to key Iraqi radar and command and control sites (then destroyed by the Apaches), blinding crucial portions of the Iraqi air defense network. After that it was pretty much all over for the Iraqis. The Pave Lows had terrain following/avoidance radar, forward looking infra-red, advanced INS with embedded GPS, and other systems that allowed them to fly long missions at night and in really bad weather. AH-64As did not have that capability and so had to follow the MH-53Js to their targets.

MH-53J

UPDATE: Found two really good vides of MH-53E of HM-14 in action at an airbase in Taiwan, along with an MH-60S and some really good footage of an FC-1 “Ching Kuo” in the second video. Heavy load lifting in the first. Both in HD. Great stuff:

Almost 672,000 people have signed the filial petition to Pope Francis imploring him to drive the Synod to uphold and re-affirm the Sacred Doctrine of the Faith regarding marriage and the family. If you haven’t done so (and what of the members of your family?) please do so now! It may make no difference to Pope Francis if even millions sign such a petition, but it will make a difference to each one of those souls who do sign, to be reassured in the knowledge that there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Catholics as concerned and scandalized as they are. It will show that there is still at least a kernel of the Faith at work in a not insignificant number of souls.

So please sign today! Let’s see the number of signatories cross 1,000,000! If your kids haven’t signed, have them do so! Surely you have at least a dozen e-mail addresses like I do, let them use one of them!

PRIESTS! Our good spiritual fathers and shepherds of souls, have you signed the Credo Priests affirmation to always uphold the Sacred Doctrine of the Faith in your care of souls? There are nearly 50,000 priests in this country but so far fewer than 1500 have signed. A lot of very good priests are not on the list. I pray they are soon. I can’t think of many good reasons why they would not be. But who am I to judge?

Pride goeth before the fall. The modernists are apparently feeling very powerful and secure, because they are starting to open their mouths and crow about both their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI, dropping hints they played a role in his abdication, as well as quite possibly illicitly organizing to elect Pope Francis.

Further serious concerns are being raised about Cardinal Godfried Danneels, one of the papal delegates chosen to attend the upcoming Ordinary Synod on the Family, after the archbishop emeritus of Brussels confessed this week to being part of a radical “mafia” reformist group opposed to Benedict XVI.

It was also revealed this week that he once wrote a letter to the Belgium government favoring same-sex “marriage” legislation because it ended discrimination against LGBT groups.

The cardinal is already known for having once advised the king of Belgium to sign an abortion law in 1990, for telling a victim of clerical sex abuse to keep quiet, and for refusing to forbid pornographic, “educational” materials being used in Belgian Catholic schools.

He also once said same-sex “marriage” was a “positive development,” although he has sought to distinguish such a union from the Church’s understanding of marriage.

……..At the launch of the book in Brussels this week, the cardinal said he was part of a secret club of cardinals opposed to Pope Benedict XVI.

He called it a “mafia” club that bore the name of St. Gallen. The group wanted a drastic reform of the Church, to make it “much more modern”, and for Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to head it. The group, which also comprised Cardinal Walter Kasper and the late Jesuit Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, has been documented in Austen Ivereigh’s biography of Pope Francis,The Great Reformer.

The plain implication is that these men were probably driving forces behind the Vatileaks and other difficulties that plagued PBXVI’s pontificate, helping convince the beleaguered Pope Emeritus that abdication was his best alternative. Of course, there have also been dark hints of a turncoat “disciple” of Ratzinger that played a key role in convincing him to abdicate, promising him that someone of a like mind would be elected and bring the constant stream of scandals afflicting the Vatican to an end. Who that turncoat is has not been revealed to date.

Nevertheless, this second admission, coupled with admissions made in the book alluded to in Pentin’s post above (The Great Reformer), seems to point to at least a reasonable possibility that there was illegal collusion between various cardinals at the conclave of 2013. Of course, Pope John Paul II had made such collusion an excommunicable offense and evidence of such would cast a huge shadow of doubt on the validity of the conclave itself. We’re very far from having anywhere near enough evidence to question that validity at present, but there is perhaps enough evidence for some kind of formal investigation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to begin. Not that anyone expects that to happen, but who knows. We are told God is a God of surprises, and this would be quite a big one.

Danneels is a thoroughly repulsive character, the very model of the progressive-modernist post-conciliar prelate. Beloved by the media and Eurozone political types for his modernist stands, it appears only his powerful political connections kept him from being charged in the cover up of repeated boy rape. He played a decisive role in covering up the repeated sodomizing of young boys by his protege Roger Vangheluwe. It is hardly surprising that such a creature would oppose Pope Benedict XVI, and not much of a stretch to believe that he would have no scruples about violating Church Law to assure a successor more amenable to his disastrously modernist outlook.